Therapy is Good for the Soul
by HoldTightAndPretendItIsAPlan
Summary: The next thing Marinette knows, she has a therapist (Aka: the one where Sabine, Marinette's mother, finally takes a look around her daughter's room)


Sabine has seen her daughter's room before, but it had been some time, perhaps sometime last summer? Not that it really mattered; her daughter's room couldn't have changed that much over the last year. So when she entered her only child's room to do a quick dusting Sabine was quite surprised to notice that the pictures of Adrien heavily outnumbered the pictures of Marinette's other friends.

It's okay to have pictures of friends. Sabine thought to herself. It's perfectly normal in fact. And maybe Marinette does have more photos of Adrien than anyone else but that's okay, he's a model so she probably uses his work for inspiration.

But, as the saying goes, curiosity killed the cat and Sabine was now curious and began to look at the pictures on her daughter's wall more closely. Those… aren't pictures of Adrien modeling clothing. Those are pictures of his face. A lot of pictures of his face. And was that…? Yes, that is a calendar showing the boy's schedule. This… this isn't healthy.

"But, why am I going to a therapist?" Marinette asked her mother with a frown of confusion on her face. "I don't understand."

"Your father and I have noticed that you've been more stressed lately." She replied. "And your school has been the main target of Akuma attacks so we want to be sure you're dealing with it in a healthy manner."

"Okay." Marinette replied. "But, um, why have you set up appointments with three different therapists?"

"Therapy is about mental health and comfort. If you don't feel comfortable with your therapist, then you should try and see at a different one that makes you more comfortable. I've set up preliminary appointments with different therapists so that you can get a feel for each of them and decide who you like best and which environment you feel most comfortable within."

"Oh."

Sabine smiled. "Do you have any other questions for me about this? I know I sprung it on you rather suddenly and I want to clear the air before we go to the first appointment."

"No, I'm okay."

"Then let's' get ready to meet the first therapist, his name is Dr. Hank Rosemen." Sabine said as she grabbed her purse. "We'll meet with Dr. Jenny Young on Thursday and Dr. Gene Kraft next week."

Marinette shrugged. "Okay."

After the preliminary meetings Marinette decided to see Dr. Young and the two of them met once a week on Tuesdays after school.

"I just don't understand. Why are your parents making you see a therapist?" Alya asked, confusion evident.

Marinette shrugged. "When I asked they said it's because I seem stressed, but they also mentioned how the Akuma attacks are really frequent at school. Personally I think this is their way of trying to prevent me from getting Akkumatized."

Just as Alya opened her mouth to reply the sound of Chloe's laughter broke into their conversation. "Am I hearing this right? Maritrash is seeing a therapist? Even your parents know there is something wrong with you!"

With a frown of confusion, not frustration, on her face Marinette asked "What's wrong with seeing a therapist? They're just a doctor. Most people see a doctor every year or so to make sure they're physically healthy. Why not see a doctor for mental health every so often too?"

"Well I think you're just trying to excuse your own insanity!" Chloe snarked back, a smirk on her face.

Just as Marinette opened her mouth to retort a look came over her face. The look could best be described as 'inner turmoil' as Marinette's face flashed several different expressions in quick succession before settling on determination as she turned to Alya. "Come on, lets' just go. She isn't going to listen anyway."

"Alya?" Marinette quietly called out to her friend.

"Yeah?" She replied, looking up from her homework.

"Am I a stalker?" The French-Asian asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

"What?!" Alya's surprise was quite evident as she dropped her pen in shock.

"It's just… I was talking to my therapist and we were talking about healthy relationships and she mentioned that knowing a lot about someone like their schedule, phone number and all of that without them knowing that I know is a little… odd. So uh, Alya, do I stalk Adrien? I don't really want to ask Jenny because I need a solid yes or no on this and she usually turns a question like that back on me but-"

Alya was too shocked to keep listening as Marinette babbled on. She had never seen her friends crush on Adrien as a bad thing, but, well, when said like that it was weird for Marinette to know as much about him as she did.

On an unrelated note, Sabine was pleased to see a certain calendar in the bin when she took out the trash later that same week.

"It's okay to love someone, but I… I don't think I love Adrien as much as I thought I did. I think… I think I was grasping at straws and trying to be 'normal' like everyone else. I never had a crush before so I just… did what I thought everyone else did when they had a crush." Marinette said, voice barely above a whisper.

Dr. Young smiled in encouragement. This was a major breakthrough for the young girl and she felt proud of Marinette's progress.

"Hey, how many billboards and posters do you think there are in Paris with that kids face on them?" asked Chat one night on one of their many patrols as he pointed to a poster of Adrien Agreste.

"I don't know about now but two months ago it was 614." Replied Ladybug as she continued walking along the rooftop.

"Wait, what?!" Chat called back to her as he stumbled. "How did you-"

"-know that?" She finished for him. "Because I counted them."

"But why?"

Ladybug sighed as she stopped walking along the roof and began to rub her arms as if warding off a chill. "Because shortly after we got our powers I met the guy and developed a crush. But instead of learning about the guy the way a normal person would I latched onto that crush with an obsession." She glanced back at Chat. "You may have wanted to be a superhero your whole life, but I never did. All I've ever wanted was friends and a normal life. So when I got these powers I kind of… freaked out. A lot." She shook her head at herself and looked down at the street. "Normal people have crushes on famous people right? So, in my obsession with being normal, I obsessed over him. It wasn't- I wasn't- UGH! It wasn't healthy, okay?! It was creepy, and weird, and I just obsessed about it because I thought that was normal for some reason?! And my friend didn't help me out at all and egged me on and probably made it worse! But, I mean, it wasn't her fault because she didn't know what a normal crush was like either!"

"What-" Chat swallowed nervously. "What exactly did you do that made it so bad?"

She rolled her eyes. "I wasn't going to kidnap the guy or anything geeze." She sat down on the rooftop (perhaps collapsed would best describe how the motion looked) and curled into a ball. "But it... it was bad. I knew his everyday schedule by heart - probably still do though I'm trying to forget - I had his phone number, I watched some of his photo shoots, and I-" tears of frustration were streaming down her face now, "Oh god! I really did that didn't I? What was wrong with me?!"

"What?" He whispered as he sat down next to her and awkwardly rubbed her back. "What did you do that was so bad?"

"I stole his phone?!" Her horror at her past actions was evident in her tone and facial expression. "I told myself that I was just borrowing it and that I was going to return it and he did get it back but I still stole it? And I did it because I left an awkward voicemail! Because I got his number from my friend (who never did tell me how she got his number) but I can't believe I did that! What was wrong with me? I broke into his locker, I hacked his phone and all to delete a weird voicemail?! I mean, he wouldn't have cared! People give weird voicemails all the time! But instead of behaving normally and leaving it be like most people do, I did all of that! Oh god I hope he never finds out about any of this. I just… what kind of a person am I?! What made that old man think 'Yes, this girl should have superpowers; I'm sure she'll handle and react to it in a normal and sane way'?!"

"Er… it's okay?" Chat tried as he continued to pat her back. "It wasn't all that bad. You didn't, ah, do anything else with his phone or the stuff in his locker… right?"

She glared at him through her tears "Don't try and make this sound better than it was." Her gaze softened. "I mean, thanks for trying, but it's still bad. Thank god my parents got me to see a therapist. They did it because they thought it would help me fight the stress all these akumas but she's been a big help with helping me understand my relationships with other people. I mean, my therapist has been a big help with stress and helping me learn how to deal with bullies, but helping me understand what makes a healthy relationship, or a healthy crush in this case, is probably one of the best things to come out of all of this." Ladybug sighed. "Before this year I was bullied extensively and the closest relationship I had outside of my parents were my classmates who could best be described as 'acquaintances'. Dr. Y- my therapist has been a huge help in getting me to understand what normal, healthy relationships are like."

"Do you, uh, do you want a hug?" He asked awkwardly.

"Yeah, I think I do." She replied as she immediately cuddled up to him (Shocking the poor boy who clearly wasn't used to this level of physical affection from her).

For a while they just sat there, looking out into the Paris streets. After a while though, Chat Noir broke the silence. "You know I'm not going to hold any of this against you, right?"

"I know." She replied. "It's why I opened up to you and shared all of that. You're my friend Chat. You're my partner. I trust you."

"Thank you My Lady. You don't know how much that means to me."

AN.

So… that's all I got. If someone wants to take it further go right ahead! Just please message me so that I know it's out there to read :D

The inspiration behind this story is the fact that I noticed how creepy Marinette's obsession is. Photos are fine, stuttering when talking to him is fine, and giving gifts is fine. Knowing his schedule (Copycat)? Stealing phones (Copycat)? Kissing the picture of him (The Bubbler)? Okay, the last one wasn't that bad in The Bubbler, but in another episode they show her kissing a photo of him on her wall next to her bed which is weird and all of this together is stalker-ish.

On top of how obsessed she seems to be about him (Adrien not being at a group outing ruins the whole outing for her; see Glaciator for details) it's creepy and doesn't seem all that healthy to me. So I thought about it and maybe the reason she's so obsessed is because she just wants to be 'normal' but being Ladybug means she isn't and as a result she is desperately latching onto what she thinks is normal? Crushes, after all, are normal but TV, movies and books don't always show healthy versions of them. The likelihood of Marinette - who seems to have had little social interaction outside of her parents before this last year due to extreme bullying at school - using media as an outline for how to behave is quite high. The likelihood of said media being a bad representation of how to behave is also quite high (because bad relationships make for good entertainment).

So then I wondered what would happen if someone in her life realized how crazy her obsession was getting. Alya knows but is encouraging it, Adrien (or Chat) would probably either be too nice to say anything to Marinette and/or encourage having Ladybug love him, but her parents… they know what a healthy relationship is and would be one of the people most likely to notice something was up. And what would I do if I had a child similar to Marinette? I'd send them to a therapist; they're specialists that would be able to see if maybe I was overreacting and/or know how to help my child if my suspicions were correct.


End file.
